Smokejumper Dak Parrish has come home to Oregon to fight fires—and to mend fences with his family. He left the Warm Springs Tribal Reservation after feuding with his father. Now, with tribal lands threatened by an arsonist, Dak gets a chance to make amends by acting as a liaison between the reservation and the forest service criminal investigator—a woman who sparks a surprising and hungry flame in him.

After a trauma on the east coast, Heidi Sinclair left DC to start fresh as a criminal investigator in Oregon. But her first serious investigation provides one stubborn obstacle after another—including an arrogant firefighter she suspects knows more than he's saying. Though she tries to battle her attraction to Dak, it’s too late. As they track down the arsonist, someone will do whatever it takes to keep old secrets buried, even if it turns everything Heidi and Dak have fought for to ashes...

I do like Marnee Blake’s ‘The Smokejumpers’ series – a series of elite firefighters is one that’s hard to resist after all. ‘Crave the Heat’ is Dak Parrish’s story, whose convoluted family history plays a prominent role in the latest case of arson that brings his path into a spectacular collision with forest service criminal investigator Heidi Sinclair.

The lines of battle were clearly demarcated here at least: Dak’s loyalties were torn between his family and his own need to work the right side of the law with Heidi, though it became clear that the plot was always going to lead to a point where these ties frayed and broke.

The attraction was fast and furious between Dak and Heidi, though I struggled to believe their near-instant connection at times, particularly when Heidi’s mixed signals bleeped strong despite the smidgen of self-awareness she had. Her constant pushing away Dak did get annoying after a while as she projected her own traumatic past and fears – rather unfairly – onto everything Dak said or did. In turn, the poor guy doubted himself more and more and frankly, I thought, deserved better all the times she cut and ran.

Blake’s insertion of some suspense drove the story forward nonetheless, even if the few twists in the story left me a bit nonplussed and more so, with a resolution that felt a little less than complete. Still, the writing, like in all of Blake’s books, is straightforward and steady, and makes it all go down quite nicely for a few hours of escapism.

Meg Buchanan is determined to prove she didn’t get the trainer job in Redmond, Oregon’s rookie smokejumper class because of her family’s long history as firefighters—or out of pity. But if teaching one of her own brothers isn’t challenge enough, she’s shocked to see Lance Roberts in the new class of recruits. Once her brother’s best friend, and her first, unrequited crush, he’s also the son of the man responsible for her dad’s death. Lance is stunned to realize that this confident redhead is the stubborn girl he once dreamed about. There’s no way he can fall for her now. He needs to focus all his attention on his training—and uncover the truth behind the long-ago fire that killed both their fathers. But as the undeniable heat between them threatens to ignite, someone attempts to put an end to Lance’s amateur sleuthing—and his life…

Meg Buchanan and Lance Roberts have always been drawn into each other’s orbits, after being separated for a decade, they’re now reunited as assistant trainer and rookie with tons left unsaid and a good dose of suspense on the side. Throw the dangerous, adrenaline-fuelled world of smokejumping into the mix and that’s pretty much Marnee Blake’s new series in a nutshell, which I’m actually quite excited about.

As an establishing novel, ‘Tempt the Flames’ does a good job of introducing the smokejumper rookies around whom the series would presumably be written. And to jump straight in (pun not intended!) with the second-chance, best friend’s sister forbidden tropes with the weight of tragedy behind them is something that makes for a solid plot with tons to be resolved.

There were parts of the storytelling that seemed to falter, however: bits that dwelled too long in the protagonists’ head which slowed the pace (Meg and Lance, who pretty much spent the majority of the time dancing around each other, then prevaricating about whether they should be together or not), the sudden glut of events and twists happening towards the end that came out of left field before the rushed closure, and the writing of action scenes that didn’t quite get my heart into my throat as I’d hoped.

My quibbles aside, I do think that ‘Tempt the Flames’ is a good start to the series and I’m still eager to see how it all shapes out .